Child of the Phoenix (155 page)

‘I am sorry.’ Eleyne shook her head, feeling the weight of her sorrow as almost intolerable. ‘So very, very sorry.’

Joanna looked up again. ‘Do we … I mean, do I have any sisters?’

Eleyne nodded. ‘Marjorie. She is married to Lord Atholl. My eldest daughter, Isabella, died.’

‘I’m your eldest daughter, mother,’ Joanna said softly.

‘Oh, my dear.’ For a moment Eleyne was aghast, then she held out her hands. ‘Oh, Joanna.’

Joanna came to her, then almost shyly she took her hands and, bending, kissed the knotted old fingers. ‘I’m glad I came,’ she whispered. ‘For a long time I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to see you again, ever. Once, when I was going to come to you at Aber I changed my mind. I couldn’t face it. I hated you for leaving us, and I hated you because Hawisa died without knowing you. She couldn’t even remember you. Cousin Margaret was the only mother she ever knew. And Annie. And Rhonwen. She loved Rhonwen.’ She noticed again the way her mother’s face hardened at the mention of Rhonwen’s name and she sighed. There was so much she would never know, now, about this enigmatic old woman.

As if sensing that somewhere, somehow a line had been drawn, Eleyne slowly withdrew her hands and reached for her stick. Unsteadily she pushed herself to her feet and walked towards the table in the centre of the room. ‘My dear, I’m so pleased you came,’ she said, ‘but you are right. It would be better if you did not stay here.’ She stood where she was, looking at the soft dark shine on the old oak table, her narrow shoulders squared defensively as if she expected Joanna to protest. ‘Scotland is at war. Kildrummy supports her present constable, who is now Scotland’s king. If you are a subject of King Edward, you cannot remain here without being compromised.’ She looked Joanna squarely in the eye. ‘The countryside is already overrun by soldiers. It may already be unsafe for you to travel, but if you stay here – ’

‘I don’t want to stay, mother.’ Joanna’s voice was firm and unemotional. ‘There’s no place for me here. Whatever your allegiance, whatever country you belong to now, my father was an Englishman.’

‘Indeed he was,’ Eleyne replied at last, drily.

‘And as you say, there are soldiers everywhere further south. I shall go as soon as I can – tomorrow.’

‘So. We shall have only one night together.’ Eleyne bit her lip. ‘I wish I could have known you; I wish I had seen you both grow up.’ She smiled sadly. ‘We won’t see each other again,’ Joanna was looking down at her hands, trying to resist the sudden stupid bitter tears which had flooded into her eyes, ‘but I shall treasure this meeting in my heart. Perhaps in another lifetime we’ll be permitted to know each other better.’

‘Another lifetime?’ Joanna looked shocked. She laughed uncomfortably. ‘In heaven, you mean?’

Eleyne shook her head. ‘Who knows what I mean? I just feel there will be a time, a place where we’ll see the people we’ve loved. There has to be. It can’t all just end.’

‘Mother – ’

‘No, my dear, don’t say any more. Please call one of the pages to take Donnet into the courtyard while I change. My gown is soiled from travelling and we must go down to the great hall for dinner. I want to show you off –’ She managed a smile.

It was Joanna who took Donnet down to the courtyard, anxious to have a few moments to herself to compose her thoughts. She stood looking up at the luminous night sky with its myriads of stars, breathing the cool freshness after the smoky heat of the solar.

From the battlements she heard the measured tread of one of the few remaining men-at-arms as he patrolled the curtain wall. She could smell the mountains; the rich, acid tang of peat and heather and thyme carried by the wind; the acrid scent of smoke from the dozens of smokeholes and chimneys in the huge castle and, beneath it, the ever present sick odour of effluence from the ditches and open drains which carried away the castle’s waste.

Donnet whined and looked up at her face. She patted his head. ‘If you knew how I loved Ancret and Lyulf,’ she whispered, ‘I missed them so much when Rhonwen took them away …’

IX

‘I want you to take him.’ Eleyne had put the leash into Joanna’s hands. ‘He will protect you on your ride home. He’s a young dog, barely more than a puppy, for all he’s so huge, and I’m too old for him. I always have to ask others to give him exercise and he seems to have become very attached to you already.’

‘Mother!’ Joanna protested, ‘you can’t mean it. You wouldn’t part with one of your dogs!’

Eleyne nodded. ‘I’ll have no more dogs, Joanna,’ she said sadly. ‘Once I would sooner have parted with an arm or a leg than one of my beauties.’ She put her hands on either side of Donnet’s head and kissed his nose. ‘But no more. I shall be dead before he is even fullgrown – oh yes,’ she hurried on as Joanna tried to protest, ‘I’m quite realistic about it. It would put my mind at rest to know he has gone with someone who will love him as much as I do. It is the most precious gift I have to give you, my darling. Please take him, with my blessings and my love.’

She walked to the drawbridge after Joanna had gone and gazed for a long time after the riders as they wound their way down the strath and into the distance, the rangy grey form of the dog, as large as a small pony already, loping beside Joanna’s dun mare in front of her small escort – a maid and two squires.

When she turned back into the outer bailey her face was wet with tears.

X

The garrison left at Kildrummy was small and many of the men were elderly. Most of the men of Mar were with their king. Only those unfit for active service or too young or too old remained to hold the castles and work the farms and crofts of the mountains. Eleyne called her steward, Alan Gordon, and her remaining knights together that very afternoon, trying in her own determined fashion to forget the lonely figure of her daughter disappearing into the distance at the beginning of her long dangerous ride south.

It was the start of several frenzied days of activity. The castle was to be made ready for a possible siege.

Gordon frowned. ‘My lady, the fighting is all to the south. The English king will never besiege Kildrummy. Our King Robert will never let him get this far, God bless him.’

‘The English king was here in person not three years ago,’ Eleyne retorted. ‘And five years before that, when I had to give him the keys on my knees. Never, never will I do that again. If all does not go well with King Robert, this will be one of the castles where he can find support and refuge – and look at us!’ She waved her hand energetically towards the high walls. ‘The underbrush comes so close to the ditch, ten armies could hide there and we wouldn’t know it.’

She was tireless in her supervision of her household over the next days, not admitting even to herself how much she missed the presence of her dog beside her as she watched the undergrowth hacked and scythed back, checking herself the lists of provisions in the storerooms, sending out for more from markets as far away as Huntly and Aberdeen. Stocks were low. It had been a cold winter and it was a late spring. The small fields around the village were hazed green with new-planted oats and barley, but it would be a long time until the harvest.

Bethoc watched her lady’s feverish activity with alarm and delight. Only five months earlier Lady Eleyne had seemed within weeks of death; now she was everywhere, her stiffness and weakness all but forgotten. The tapping of her walking stick became a familiar sound in the courtyards and corridors of the castle. Once again she was often in the stables, watching her mares as they fed, or leaning thoughtfully against the wall in the smithy as Hal Osborne paused from forging weapons to fit new shoes, missing nothing as he laid the red-hot irons on his anvil, hammering them to shape before plunging them into the tank of water and clamping them to the horses’ hooves in clouds of steam.

She was standing outside the postern, scanning the men who were cutting back the undergrowth in the Den when one of the men perched on the rocks above the burn gave a shout. She saw him jump down out of sight into the rocks, then he reappeared and began to scramble up towards her.

Even before she saw it in his hand she knew what he had found. She tensed, her fingers tightening on the handle of her walking stick.

‘My lady.’ It was John of Mossat, a small man with bright brown eyes and a head of unruly dark hair, the reason for his absence from the war immediately apparent as she saw his twisted withered right arm. He polished something against the grubby hodden of his belted tunic and held it out to her.

The phoenix.

‘Someone must have dropped it, my lady,’ he said, puzzled that she did not put out her hand to take it. ‘It’s gey pretty.’

Even the encrustation of mud and moss could not dull the gemstone flames. She stared at it for a long time before she remembered the man standing before her. She looked up and he was astonished to see tears in her eyes.

‘Thank you,’ she said.

He shrugged and turned away, disappointed at her reaction. He had already forgotten it when two days later Alan Gordon appeared himself at the door of his bothy and pressed a small bagful of silver coins, a fortune beyond his wildest dreams, into his hand as a reward.

XI

‘So you have come back to me.’ In the silence of her bedchamber, Eleyne poured some water from a ewer into an earthenware bowl. By the light of a single branch of candles, she dropped the jewel into the water and agitated it gently, watching the dirt float to the surface.

When it was clean, she dried it carefully on a scrap of silk, then she held it up to the light.

‘Where are you?’ she whispered. Her hands, holding the phoenix, had begun to tremble.

The room was very quiet. On the floor above, Bethoc and the ladies were sitting quietly around their own fire, gossiping as they sewed or spun. Like the men of the castle they viewed their countess’s frenetic preparations for a siege with long-suffering scepticism, putting her caution down to old age, but half afraid deep down that maybe she had had a premonition …

Alexander?
Eleyne’s fingers tightened on the phoenix. ‘Where are you?’

The room was completely silent; the fire burned low.
Please don’t
forsake me now. I need you
. She stared down at the jewelled bird in her hands.
Scotland needs you
. But there was no reply. The room was cold and empty and there was no gentle touch on her shoulder to reassure her that she was not alone.

With a small sigh she rummaged in her jewel casket for a chain, her stiff swollen fingers picking over treasures which brought back so many memories. She found one at last, and threading the pendant on to it, put it around her neck, slipping it beneath the soft fabric of gown and shift. The enamelled jewels were cold beneath her breasts, and she caught her breath as she shut the casket lid and turned towards the fire. She would never take the phoenix off again.

She was asleep when he came at last, a shadow in the darkness, cast upon the wall by the dying candles. For a long time he stood, looking down at the sleeping face, then at last he smiled. His touch upon her hair was no more than the gentle shiver of a passing draught.

XII

The lack of news was the worst part of the next few weeks. The castle waited through the long spring without word from the south. From time to time rumours reached them of the activities of King Edward’s armies, under the direction of Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke. He had arrived in Scotland under the dragon banner – the fearful symbol of total destruction which would give no quarter. Neither women nor children would be spared if they supported the rebel king. Eleyne heard the news white-faced and went to look down into the castle courtyard. She had done all she could to prepare. Little Donald and her name-sake, Ellie, were safe at Kildrummy. Now they could do nothing but wait.

XIII
June

The last thing she expected was to find King Robert on her doorstep. He slipped into the castle in the strange half-light of the early June night, accompanied by a few dozen men and several women. ‘I want you to keep my daughter here, mother-in-law.’

He raised Eleyne to her feet as, wrapped in a bed gown, her hair loose down her back, she knelt before him in the great hall. ‘I’m terrified what would happen to her if she were captured. And my queen. And Kirsty and Mary, and Isobel. I’m going to leave Nigel and Robert Boyd here to help you hold the castle.’ He glanced over his shoulder at the Countess of Buchan who stood near him and Eleyne saw them exchange smiles. ‘Things are not going well for us.’ He scowled with weariness. ‘We’ll stay a day or two, to rest my men, then we’ll be on our way. We have to confront Pembroke and drive him out of Scotland. Unless we can do that, we’re lost. I’ll feel safer if I know the ladies are here out of harm’s way.’

He was as good as his word. For three days the men ate and slept and repaired their weapons, then in the dawn of the fourth, they slipped away as quietly as they had come.

Sir Nigel Bruce came to the Snow Tower to tell Eleyne that they had gone. A tall young man, with his brother’s good looks and hazel eyes, he smiled when he saw her dismay at his news. ‘He thought it better to leave quietly. He didn’t want any scenes. Elizabeth has not made it easy for him, and she is not making it easy for Isobel either. I suppose you can’t blame her. She knows of course that they are lovers.’ He looked at the old woman to gauge her reaction, and noted with approval her lack of shock or surprise. ‘They’ve tried to hide it, they’ve been very careful, but it’s hard. Travelling, camping … We have tried to allow them time together when they can find it, and Elizabeth of course has resented it bitterly.’ He shrugged. ‘But she is no support to Robert. He needs someone who is behind him totally, and Isobel gives him that. She’s as passionate in her support of the cause as she is in her love for him.’